


when the letter says a soldier's coming home

by karasunonolibero



Series: haikyuu song fics [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Angst with a Happy Ending, Letters, M/M, Vietnam War-Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 22:41:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunonolibero/pseuds/karasunonolibero
Summary: Koushi grabs his arm, hand shaking as he scrawls his address on the inside of Daichi’s wrist. “That’s my college address. Write to me there. And when you come back, I’ll be waiting for you, so find me. Please.”The smile Daichi gives him is tinged with melancholy. “You shouldn’t wait for me, Koushi. With your looks, you’ll have boys falling at your feet. Take one of them.”Koushi shakes his head. “Please.”“Okay.” Daichi brushes a lock of hair from Koushi’s face, squeezes his hand, and then he’s gone.~or, the year is 1968 and all Koushi can do is wait for Daichi to come home.





	1. JULY 1968

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keysmashlesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmashlesbian/gifts).

> this is dedicated to emma (keysmashlesbian) because we apparently started war letter fics on the same day in separate fandoms while 3000 miles apart.
> 
> anyway i was on vacation and on the radio i heard an irish folk band cover [travelin' soldier by the dixie chicks](https://youtu.be/PKx3coz3G7c). and i don't know why but then my gremlin brain decided there needed to be a fic. it doesn't follow the events Exactly but it's heavily heavily inspired by it.
> 
> i took some liberties with the history—mostly the tour length and all, but just...suspend your disbelief. 
> 
> i would say enjoy but that might not be appropriate ._. so. have this!

The Crow’s Nest sees many an army man walk through the doors. Koushi himself has seen dozens in the few months he’s been working there. So it’s no surprise, really, when the door opens and in walks a young man in his army greens. This one looks so young, Koushi notes as he watches the boy find a booth by the window. They might even be the same age. With that haunting thought in mind, Koushi grabs a notepad and pen and walks up to him.

“What can I get for you today?”

The boy looks at him, then at the menu, then back at him. “Just a burger and fries, please.”

“Sure. Anything to drink.”

“A strawberry milkshake?”

“You got it.” Koushi nods and scoops up the menu, giving him a warm smile. He’s quite handsome up close, actually, with a strong face and kind dark eyes that military service will snuff the light right out of. Koushi decides he wants to see this boy smile just once before he leaves for the base.

When he brings the food over, the boy looks even more depressed, but Koushi can’t blame him in the slightest. He’d been the same way if the positions were reversed, but he’s been fortunate with the conditions that keep him from being drafted. For once, being anemic was actually a boon.

“Hey,” Koushi says, putting the plates on the table, “not to pry, but what’s wrong?”

“Aside from the obvious?”

Koushi hadn’t wanted to assume he didn’t enlist, just in case. “I guess.”

“It’s a long story.” The boy sighs. “Would you just…would it be okay if you just sat and talked with me for a little? Before I go?”

Koushi smiles. “I’m off in an hour. If you’re still around and you have time, I’ll meet you on the pier. The black bench.”

The boy nods. “I have time. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Koushi. Koushi Sugawara.”

“Daichi Sawamura.”

Koushi doesn’t see Daichi for the rest of his shift, too busy with a party of twelve that walk in right after he leaves the table. But the moment the clock strikes two, he all but throws his apron at his manager with a shout of “Sorry, Asahi!” and takes off for the pier. He finds Daichi on the promised black bench, his duffel bag by his feet. Daichi starts, but looks relieved when he spots Koushi. “You came.”

“Well, I invited you, didn’t I?”

Daichi scoots over to make room for Koushi to sit next to him. “I dunno. Thank you.”

“Yeah, it’s no worries.” Koushi folds his hands together in his lap. “So…talk to me.”

After a short pause, Daichi sighs. Koushi can see the tension in his shoulders. “It’s just…it’s pathetic, you know? I feel like I’m out of options and out of time. I got drafted and I don’t wanna go, of course I don’t, but I got nothing here for me.”

“Nothing at all?”

Daichi shakes his head and rakes a hand through his hair. “Nothing,” he repeats. “I don’t even have anyone to send a letter to when I go wherever they ship me off to. No one to miss me.”

“I’d miss you,” Koushi whispers.

“You don’t even know me.”

He’s right. They’re still perfect strangers; all they know are names. Koushi’s known this kid all of an hour but the urge to protect him is overwhelming. “Let me know you, then,” he challenges. “Nobody should have no one to miss them.”

Daichi only hesitates for a second before he’s spilling everything. He tells Koushi how he grew up in a tiny town on the other side of the state—how he never knew his father and his mother became an alcoholic when he was eleven, leaving him to raise his seven-year-old sister mostly by himself—how he dropped out of school at sixteen to work full-time, and how his sister died suddenly a week before his eighteenth birthday. She was fourteen.

“And then the draft came for me, and as much as I don’t want to go, it feels like a relief,” he admits, “because at least I have a path for the next few years.”

Koushi’s throat constricts at the thought of feeling so lost that the draft is a blessing. “You could dodge it, you know,” he says quietly. “Tell them you have a medical condition. Or enroll in college. Or tell them you’re—”

“Homosexual.”

“I—” Koushi blinks. “You could.”

Daichi gives a bitter laugh. “The medical tests won’t show any conditions. I don’t have the grades for college. And if I told ‘em the last thing, it wouldn’t even be a lie but that still leaves me with nothing here.”

Koushi opens his mouth, shuts it, and opens it again, but no words come out. As utterly disheartening as Daichi’s plight is, he’s still stuck on the part where Daichi just admitted he’s gay. “Wait, you are?”

“Sorry.” Daichi looks down, fidgeting with his fingers. “That’s too personal. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No, no. it’s okay,” Koushi rushes to say, and lowers his voice to barely a whisper. “I’m—I’m gay, too.”

“Oh.” Daichi looks pleased with that. “That’s—yeah.”

“Yeah,” Koushi echoes, quickly looking down at his lap.

“Koushi?” Daichi tentatively reaches for his hand. “Can I be honest?”

“You wouldn’t call telling me your whole life story being honest?”

There’s the smile Koushi’s been waiting for. “Well, extra honest.”

“Okay.” Koushi looks back up.

“I’ve sort of wanted to kiss you since you came over to my table,” Daichi admits, the tips of his ears turning pink with his confession. “I just—I don’t know, I thought you were so pretty with your big eyes and beauty mark and gray hair—”

“Hey, my hair is ash blond,” Koushi corrects him with a teasing laugh. “What are you waiting for, then? Stop stalling.”

“What?”

“I’ve sort of wanted to kiss you since you sat down in my booth.” Now it’s Koushi’s turn to blush. “So hurry it up and kiss me.”

Daichi does exactly that, sliding a hand around the back of Koushi’s neck and pressing his mouth to his in a chaste kiss that sets the butterflies in his stomach in flight. He’s been kissed before, of course, but the utterly cliche notion that none of them have ever felt like this is painful. It’s true and it’s terribly sad. Because Daichi is about to leave for God knew where—Vietnam, most likely—and who said Daichi would even remember him when he returned? If he returned at all?

The anxiety must show on his face. “Was that okay?” Daichi asks with a frown.

“This is such a mistake,” Koushi whispers, meeting his eyes.

Daichi’s frown deepens. “Wait, how old are you?”

“Eighteen, same as you.” Koushi could laugh at the way the apprehension leaves Daichi’s face at that. He really, really wants to kiss him again, but he knows if he does, he won’t be able to stop.

Daichi’s not looking at him anymore now, eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon, “Would you mind if I send a letter or two back here to you? Since I don’t have anyone?”

Koushi’s expression softens. “Of course you can, I’ll write back when I can.”

The rumbling of a bus turning on the street has Daichi jumping to his feet. “Shit, that’s the last bus to the base,” he hisses. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” Koushi grabs his arm, hand shaking as he scrawls his address on the inside of Daichi’s wrist. “That’s my college address. Write to me there. And when you come back, I’ll be waiting for you, so find me. Please.”

The smile Daichi gives him is tinged with melancholy. “You shouldn’t wait for me, Koushi. With your looks, you’ll have boys falling at your feet. Take one of them.”

Koushi shakes his head. “Please.”

“Okay.” Daichi brushes a lock of hair from Koushi’s face, squeezes his hand, and then he’s gone. Koushi watches the bus disappear, with Daichi aboard, in a cloud of dust and fumes, and though he’s never been particularly religious, he thinks he might take up prayer if it’ll help Daichi come home safely.


	2. SEPTEMBER 1968

The first letter comes on a sunny Thursday afternoon in September, two weeks after he’s moved into his dorm and met his hyperactive volleyball-playing roommate, Tooru. Truth be told, he hadn’t been expecting it, not wanting to get his hopes up every time he checked the mail room. But here it is, a letter addressed to him, in handwriting that he knows from the diner receipt is Daichi’s. He tears it open and reads it right there in the mail room since it’s empty and there’s no nosy (friendly, but extremely nosy) Tooru around to read over his shoulder.

_Dear Koushi,_

_I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write to you—basic training has kept me busy from before sunrise until long after it’s set, and then once it’s over I collapse right into bed. But it’s over now, and I can say I survived boot camp. I’m sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore, but it’s a good kind of exhaustion. It’s the feeling that I did something I thought I couldn’t, and here I am now._

_I’m at a base in California right now, somewhere in the south. Have you ever been? I think if I was here just to visit, I’d like it. It’s warm like it is at home in Florida but with none of the humidity. It’s all dry heat here. _

_I met some other Japanese-American guys my age. Their names are Tetsurou and Koutarou and Keiji—when the three of them are all together they’re usually up to something but they’re really nice, and probably the closest thing I have to friends. _

_So many of the men talk about the girlfriends they’ve left behind, the families they have waiting for them to come home. As far as I know, Tetsurou or Koutarou or Keiji don’t have anyone, but it feels like everyone else does. They always ask me if I have a girlfriend. Obviously I can’t tell them the truth. Also, I don’t really know what to say about you, if they ask._

_I don’t want to have this conversation in a letter from an army camp, I don’t want to do the “what are we” talk like this. We can have it when I come home—unless you’ve found someone else, of course, and I would respect that. Like I said, I don’t expect you to wait for me if you don’t want to. But the fact is that every time someone mentions his girlfriend, I think about kissing you on the pier that day I left, so I want to ask. Is it okay if I talk about you? I wouldn’t tell them you’re a boy, I’d just use your name and probably might have to pretend you’re a girl. I just want to tell them I have someone waiting for me too, someone to write to and miss and want to come home for. _

_But enough about me. The base is kind of boring and I’m already out of things to tell you. Tell me about you. Tell me about college and if you have a roommate and what classes you’re taking. Did you tell me what you were majoring in? I’m sorry, I can’t remember._

_If you reply I’ll try to write back as soon as I can but advanced training is starting soon so I might take a little time. I hope that’s okay._

_– Daichi_

“Ooh, is Koushi getting love letters?”

Koushi looks up to see Tooru standing in the doorway of the mail room smirking at him. “What? No!”

Tooru laughs. “Then what are you smiling so much for?”

“Uh…” He’s only known Tooru for a few weeks, hasn’t tested the waters to find out what’s okay to tell him yet. He decides to go with a half-truth. “My friend got drafted. It’s a letter from him.”

“Ah.” Tooru hums sympathetically. “The damn draft. Did you enroll to get out of it, too? Feels like half the people here did.”

“No, I wanted to go.”

“Me, too. I wanna go to space.”

“I could tell,” Koushi teases him. “Everything on your side of the room has moons and stars and planets on it.”

Tooru grins. “I’m gonna go to the moon one day.”

That night, after all his homework is done, he sits at his desk and writes a letter back to Daichi.

_Dear Daichi,_

_I was so happy to get your letter that my roommate made fun of me for smiling like an idiot in the mail room._

_I don’t know a thing about the army so anything you tell me is going to be interesting, I promise. Especially those three friends you mentioned—they sound like a lot to handle. I bet they annoy their superiors all the time. If they ever are up to something, tell me. _

_I’ve never been to California but my parents always talk about going someday. Apparently I have cousins in San Francisco on my dad’s side. I don’t know when that would be, though. _

_College is good. I’m studying mathematics and I think I want to be a teacher. Maybe for high school. But I have time to decide. My roommate is…well, he’s interesting, and I have a hunch he’d get along with Koutarou and Tetsurou and Keiji. His name is Tooru, he’s Japanese too, and he’s studying astronomy and physics. He’s crazy about space—he’s got stars and planets on everything he owns, and every book I’ve seen him reading that isn’t a textbook is about space. He’s brilliant and friendly and he says he’s going to stand on the moon someday. I completely believe him. If anyone will, it’s Tooru. _

_As for your question, I’m flattered that our brief meeting is enough to make you want to talk about me. I must confess I’ve been thinking about you far more than I probably should, considering how long we spent together. I’d be proud to be the one you think about when you think of what you have to come home to. _

_Write back when you have a chance. If it’s a few weeks, that’s okay, I know you’re busy. How long are you going to be in California? Take care._

_– Koushi_

And thus starts a routine that Koushi settles into happily. He checks his mail faithfully, and writes back the same night a letter arrives, too happy to hear back to do anything else for the rest of the day. He repurposes a shoebox, covering it with floral wrapping paper and using it to keep Daichi’s letters in.

The letters vary in length, depending on how tired Daichi was when he wrote it, but by winter, the tones begin to shift toward the romantic. Koushi mentions their kiss on the pier again, and Daichi responds fondly. They begin to flirt a bit, Koushi writing of missing him and Daichi replying with how often Koushi’s in his thoughts. Reading the sweet words never fails to bring a blush to his face, a blush that makes Tooru constantly ask about the letters from “Koushi’s mysterious army friend.” He always declines to divulge the details, still unsure whether Tooru is safe to come out to. He thinks he is, but he can never be too sure.

Until one day, in the thick of exam week before spring break in March, when Koushi comes back late after holing himself up in the library all afternoon. He can hear a new voice on the other side of the door as he approaches, one that’s low and a little gruff, a complete contrast from Tooru’s lilting cadence.

When he opens the door, he’s met with the sight of Tooru sitting on a male stranger’s lap, their foreheads pressed together as they giggle.

“Um, hi?” Koushi squeaks.

Tooru jumps up so fast the stranger falls off the couch. “Koushi! You’re back! I thought you were studying with Kenji tonight? Hajime’s a friend from—uh, history class!”

Koushi just smiles. “It’s okay, Tooru,” he says softly. “Me, too.”

Tooru stares for a second before recognition flickers across his face. “So you…”

“Yeah.”

Tooru breaks out in a grin. “This is Hajime. He’s my boyfriend.”

The stranger clambers back onto the couch and waves. “Koushi, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Koushi smiles back. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The three of them make small talk while Koushi heats up some soup, and soon talk turns to Koushi’s letters.

“He has a friend in the army,” Tooru chirps to Hajime. “They write to each other all the time.”

Hajime looks interested. “Oh, really? Who?”

“Ah…just someone I met over the summer.” He hesitates for a moment, and then suddenly it all comes out. How he’d met Daichi at the diner last summer, how they’d kissed on the pier and promised to write to each other, and how they’d been exchanging letters for months.

Tooru swoons. “Koushi, that’s so romantic! Waiting for your man to come home and be with you,” he gasps, falling into Hajime’s arms.

Hajime lets him fall onto the floor, ignoring Tooru’s squawks of protest. “Do you know when he’s coming home?”

Koushi shakes his head. “I don’t know how long tours are, but I hope it’s soon. He said he’ll tell me when he’s coming home.”

“And you’re waiting for him?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Koushi shrugs. “It’s not like anyone else has caught my eye.”

Tooru scowls from where he’s still sitting on the floor, stubbornly refusing to get up. “Excuse me! I’ve been right here all along, Koushi! I’m offended!”

“Why are you complaining when you have Hajime? Plus I didn’t even know you were gay!”

They all dissolve into laughter at that, comforted and warm in the knowledge that they’re all in the same boat.


	3. OCTOBER 1969

The months pass, and the letters keep coming. Koushi finishes his first year of college and turns 19; that summer, he and Tooru road trip up to New York for a music festival called Woodstock, and have the time of their lives. He’s picking grass off his clothes for weeks after, but makes sure to tell Daichi all about it.

When Koushi starts his second year of college, the gap between letters begins to grow, but he doesn’t question it, figuring Daichi is just busy. Then, in early October, he gets the shortest letter yet.

_Dear Koushi,_

_Sorry I haven’t written. I’ve been deployed to Vietnam. I know you’re going to worry when you read that but please don’t. Tetsurou and Keiji and Koutarou are here with me too, and they’re keeping me sane._

_I’m not going to lie, it’s rough over here. It’s hard to watch what’s going on and even harder to have to take part in it. I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could be sitting on that black bench on the pier with you, talking to you and looking at the ocean and watching the breeze blow through your hair. That’s what I think about when I think I can’t do it anymore. I think about you and coming back to you._

_At first I asked to write to you because I didn’t have anyone at all. But I’m happy I met you and not someone else. Your letters brighten my day like no one else’s could. It’s as simple as that._

_You’ll tell me if something’s changed, right? You’ll tell me if you’ve found somebody and you’d rather I stop writing to you like this?_

_– Daichi_

~

_Dear Daichi,_

_No, I haven’t found anyone. I told you when you left and I’m telling you again now: I’m waiting for you. Nobody I meet could or will change that. _

_I miss you. Is that strange? When you think about it we only really knew each other for an hour at most. But I feel like I know you. In fact, I have a confession to make. I think I’m falling in love with you._

_It’s silly. It really is. But I can only tell you how I feel and that’s how I feel. _

_I’m in love with your bravery and your kindness and your dedication. I love your optimism even in the worst of places—or what you show to me, at least. Just the thought of you is enough to bring a smile to my face. I love that you don’t expect me to wait for you. It makes me want to wait for you even more. _

_Daichi, I feel so lucky to have met you. I’m proud to be the one you talk to the others about and proud to say I’m holding out for such a genuine soul as yours._

_We both know it’s dangerous over there. Please be careful. _

_Love,  
_ _Koushi_

~

_Dear Koushi,_

_I don’t have much time so I’ll have to keep this short, but I’d rather get you a shorter letter sooner than make you wait any longer than necessary. You have no idea how happy your last letter made me. I can happily say I’ve fallen in love with you too, and I think I have been since we met in the diner. You’re beautiful, what can I say? Beautiful inside and out. _

_I wish I could kiss you. God knows I’ve thought about it often enough. It’s scary sometimes, what’s happening here, but the thought of you is enough to keep me going. In your next letter, could you please send a picture? My mind’s eye can’t do you justice._

_Love,  
_ _Daichi_

~

January is when the other shoe drops.

_Dear Koushi,_

_I won’t be able to write for a while. Don’t worry. I’ll write when I can, but it’ll be a few months._

_Just know that I’m thinking of you every day and I still carry your picture close to my heart. It’s where you belong, after all._

_Love,  
_ _Daichi_


	4. AUGUST 1970

The waiting is the hardest part, because there’s nothing Koushi can do about it. So with Tooru’s support, he tries to maintain as normal a life as possible. He goes to class, he does his homework, and he gets a job at a little coffeeshop near campus called The Swan Cafe. He goes to a party here and there and makes new friends. He carries on.

The summer between his second and third years at college, he doesn’t go home—he sticks around, keeping his job and taking summer courses. When he explains his decision to his mother, he told her it was to keep ahead of his studies. The truth is that he’s afraid of missing a letter from Daichi.

Tooru didn’t stay, so Koushi gets a different roommate for the three months, a quiet short guy named Yuu who said he’d done a tour in Vietnam.

“I was a pilot,” he tells Koushi as he stuffs his neatly folded shirts in the drawer. “You probably heard what happened with Operation Rolling Thunder.” Koushi nods. “I just consider myself lucky I’m still here.”

Koushi tells him about Daichi, framing him as a family friend. Yuu just smiles sympathetically, and Koushi gets the sense that Yuu hasn’t always had this quiet demeanor.

One August afternoon, Koushi gets caught in one of Florida’s quintessential afternoon thunderstorms on the way home from the coffeeshop—stupidly, without an umbrella. He dashes back to his dorm, flinging himself down the stairs to the mail room to check for the envelope.

It’s slightly crumpled and the corner is tearing at the side, but at last, here it is.

_Dear Koushi,_

_I’m coming home._

_I’ve been waiting for the day I can write those words to you with certainty. My tour is almost up and I’m coming home in the next few months. _

_Like hell I’m doing a second tour. Two years ago, when I left, I might have considered it. I thought I was lost. I didn’t know where I was gonna go or what I was gonna do. But one thing I’ve learned here is that sometimes, having a plan doesn’t mean shit. Plans and strategies you’ve spent weeks on can fall apart with one little thing. So why not throw all that away and just see what happens?_

_Tetsurou and Koutarou and Keiji and I have been talking about the future a lot. Tetsurou wants to go to college—and he should, he’s so much smarter than people give him credit for—and Keiji and Koutarou want to settle down in a civilian job. The transition won’t be easy but I think after being here, we can do anything. _

_My own future still feels pretty hazy, but there’s one thing I know. Jobs, places to live, none of that stuff really matters. When I look ahead, when I think about where I’ll be next year, in three years, in ten years, I just see myself with you. Is that selfish to say? Is it selfish to know that all I want is a life with you in it, with you by my side? Maybe, but that’s what I see. That’s what I want. That’s what’s kept me going all this time. I feel like I’ve said that to you in all my other letters but for the first time, it feels real._

_So thank you, Koushi. Thank you for the letters and the pictures and the support and the love. It means so much more than you could imagine. I can’t wait to see your face and your smile and hold you again. I love you._

_Love,_

_Daichi_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> while doing research for this fic i found out about operation rolling thunder and i just. i had to i couldn't Not throw that in


	5. NOVEMBER 1970

Koushi is home for Thanksgiving with Tooru in tow and a turkey on the table when there’s a sharp knock on the door.

Koushi’s mother gives him a questioning look. “Did you invite any of your other friends?”

“I didn’t, but maybe it’s Asahi or someone.” He gets up, leaving his full plate on the table, and opens the door.

Standing on the front porch is a broad man with close-cropped hair and a formal Army officer’s uniform. The name stitched into his uniform is USHIJIMA. “I’m looking for Koushi Sugawara.”

It hits him like a bucket of ice water poured over his head. In the movies, an officer showing up at the door is never good news. And just down the street, the Kitas also had an officer on their doorstep, just two weeks ago according to his mother and… His stomach drops. “Please, no, don’t tell me…”

Ushijima’s eyes soften, but his voice is steady. “I regret to inform you that Daichi Sawamura has been reported dead in North Vietnam.”

He says more, but Koushi can’t focus. Daichi Sawamura. Reported dead. North Vietnam. The pairs of words play over and over in his brain in a hellish loop as his head goes light and he feels the blood drain from his face. He can’t think. He can’t breathe. He can’t see.

He can’t do this.

His knees hit the floor and he doubles over, vomiting up what little he has in his stomach, and then—nothing.

When Koushi comes to, he’s on the living room couch. He can hear Ushijima talking with his father in the kitchen. “…no living next of kin that we could find. The only person he was in contact with was your son.”

“Koushi.” His mother appears in his field of vision, concern etched on her face as she hovers over him. “Is this true? You knew this man?”

He nods. “I’m sorry I never told you,” he croaks out.

“Oh, my darling.” She combs her fingers through his hair, rests her hand on his forehead. She feels ice cold. “I’m so sorry.”

“He was only twenty, Mom,” he whispers.

Another hand feels his forehead. “Koushi, you’re burning up,” Tooru says.

“Am I?”

“I’ll get you a cold cloth.”

Koushi closes his eyes, throws an arm over his face, and lets a sob choke him. “He was twenty years old! He didn’t want this! He didn’t want to go, but he had to. And he—he was coming home,” he whimpers. “The last letter he sent me…he told me he was coming home.”

Gentle hands move his arm from his face, and a cold cloth is pressed to his forehead. “Want to go to your room?” Tooru asks.

Koushi nods, taking a deep breath and trying to steady his voice. “Okay.”

“Stay with him, Tooru. I’ll bring your plates upstairs in case you want them later,” Koushi’s mother says. In a daze, he lets Tooru help him to his feet and up the stairs, listening to Ushijima’s irritatingly calm voice fade away. God, would it kill him to show a little emotion? Just a shred of sympathy for the terrible news he’s come to bear?

Tooru pushes him gently toward the bed, presumably to help him lie down again, but instead Koushi grabs a pillow, presses it to his face, and lets out a scream.

“Koushi?” Tooru looks alarmed.

“He was supposed to come home, Tooru!” Koushi screams, hurling the pillow against his bookcase, watching a few knickknacks clatter to the floor. The despair that had him pinned to the downstairs couch starts melting into something uglier, angrier, burning scarlet holes in his heart. “He was coming home! And now he’ll never get to! This isn’t fucking fair, Tooru!”

“It’s so unfair,” Tooru agrees, his tone placating, but Koushi isn’t done. He’s far from done.

“_Fuck this war_!” he roars, his voice cracking on the expletive. “Fuck the draft, fuck the army, and fuck this _fucking war_!”

He doesn’t care if Sergeant/Major/Colonel/Whatever Ushijima hears him. The entire neighborhood could hear him railing against the military and he wouldn’t give a single shit. What good has this war done anyway, other than make a mess and tear families apart and leave lovers brokenhearted?

He wants to break something, but nothing in sight is breakable. He slams the door so hard the sound echoes through the house like a gunshot, and then punches it for good measure.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that.” Tooru’s hand takes his wrist. “You’re gonna hurt your hand punching like that.”

“I’ll punch you instead, then.” But it’s an empty threat. As quickly as the anger had risen, it’s already begun to recede; he has no doubt it’ll be back soon like the tide, a new wave to ride out. He lets Tooru guide him to his bed and drape a blanket around his shoulders. “What’s the point?”

“What’s the point of what?” Tooru sits next to him, his hand coming up to rub comforting circles into Koushi’s back.

“Everything. All of this. This bullshit war.” The tears well up in his eyes again, and he sniffs. “I know life isn’t supposed to be fair, but this…it doesn’t just feel unfair.”

“Because it’s so personal,” Tooru says. “That’s what you’re feeling, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Probably.” Koushi wraps the blanket tighter around him, hiccuping as he tries to hold in his tears.

He succeeds for a whole twenty seconds, breaking down in Tooru’s arms, heavy sobs wracking his chest and twist his heart like someone’s wringing out a wet washcloth. Tooru stays with him, petting his hair and his shoulders and mumbling soothing things to him, until eventually, just like the rage, the crying subsides when he’s out of tears to let fall. He takes a shuddering breath, leans his head on Tooru’s shoulder, and then he’s out, drifting off to a fitful slumber.


	6. MARCH 1973

“Tooru, get up! You’ll be late for class!” Koushi calls, grabbing both of their jackets from the closet.

“I’ll get him.” Hajime huffs, more than accustomed to his fiancé’s inability to get out of bed in the morning. He clomps up the stairs, roaring, “Tooru, if you don’t get your ass out of bed I’m dumping cold water on you!”

“No!” comes Tooru’s shriek from the bedroom, followed by a horrendous crashing noise. Koushi just sighs and finishes packing up his lunch.

At first he’d felt awkward, moving in with his best friend and his fiancé, but Tooru and Hajime swore up and down that it wouldn’t be a problem. Koushi knew they were really just worried about him.

After the night Ushijima appeared on the Sugawara family doorstep and dropped that bomb, Koushi didn’t go to class for the rest of the semester, too distraught to do much other than sleep, cry, and occasionally eat. And when he returned in the spring, all cried out and feeling like a shell of himself, his heart wasn’t in—well, anything at all.

His grades dropped. He drank more. He went out nearly every night, frequenting the gay bars downtown in search of someone to try to make him forget. Then he’d start feeling guilty for sleeping around with reckless abandon—he’d promised to wait for Daichi, after all. But Daichi wasn’t coming home anymore. So he’d go out again, drink again, and the cycle would start all over again.

It was Tooru who finally snapped some sense into him in the fall, the moment they moved back into the dorms.

“Listen,” he said firmly, “you’re sad. I get it. I don’t know what I would do if I were in your shoes and someone told me Hajime was dead. But you still have a whole goddamn life ahead of you. Don’t you remember what you told me our first year? You said you were gonna teach high school kids how to do calculus because you loved numbers so much. You said numbers helped you understand the world. Here’s a number for you: you’re twenty-one years old. Twenty-one! You have so many more years ahead of you! Are you really gonna spend them holding yourself back and keeping yourself from the dreams you used to have? That’s not what Daichi would want.”

Having so many years ahead of him while Daichi had none left felt like the definition of unfair. But life was like that sometimes, he realized as he watched Tooru tear his ACL and have to spend his last year of college volleyball on the bench and watch his team go to nationals without his help. Life took the best things away, and the only thing left to do was find the next best.

So Koushi picked himself up, stopped drinking and going out, and refocused on his studies. His GPA climbed back up. Though he couldn’t graduate in the spring with the rest of his class, he buckled down and took summer courses to complete his credits and received his degree at the end of August.

When Tooru asked Koushi to move in with him and Hajime, Koushi noted the ring on his left hand, and only agreed when they insisted. Tooru began graduate school, Hajime started law school, and Koushi found a job as a teaching assistant in the middle school near their house. They settled, learning how to coexist with their vastly different schedules, and, day by day, things began to feel normal.

Koushi hadn’t so much as kissed anyone since college, and he was fine with it. At Tooru’s suggestions, he went on a date here and there, and they were all perfectly fine men, but none of them made him feel that spark, so every date ended with a polite smile, a thanks, and declining a second date. None of them were Daichi.

Koushi isn’t sure if he’ll ever find someone, the Daichi-shaped depression in his heart too specific a shape for anyone to ever fit into, but that’s okay. He likes his job and his classroom, and he’s helping plan the informal wedding celebration, and sometimes he teams up with Hajime to tease Tooru, and he can be content with this life.

He hears the upstairs shower turn on, which means Hajime succeeded in getting Tooru out of bed. Good, Koushi won’t feel bad leaving. “See you tonight!” he calls up the stairs before slipping his jacket on and heading for the door. But before he can open it, there’s a knock.

Who would be here this early in the morning? Maybe a delivery of flowers or something? Tooru’s been calling in all sorts of orders lately so maybe it’s something he arranged.

Nothing could have prepared him for the man standing on the porch.

His face is darker than Koushi remembers, cheekbones more pronounced. His build is stronger, shoulders wider, jaw sharper. Those eyes, once sparkling and full of life, are now a dull brown, but there’s a tiny flicker of hope as they lock gazes.

“Koushi?” the man says.

His first instinct is to just stare and gape like he’s seen a ghost. As far as he’s concerned, he is. “Daichi?” he dares to ask.

The man nods, face relaxing as he takes a step forward. “Koushi, it’s me,” he says, holding out his arms.

For a second, Koushi’s frozen in the doorway, listening to the shower shut off and doors open upstairs. Then the bag lunch hits the floor. “Daichi!” he cries, flinging himself into the waiting arms.

Daichi laughs, the sound warm, and Koushi bursts into tears. “They told me you were dead,” he blubbers out, pulling back just enough to look Daichi in the eyes. “They said…this officer came to the door on Thanksgiving and told us you were dead…”

“Shh, I know.” Daichi cups Koushi’s face, a thumb brushing against his cheek and wiping away some of the tear tracks.

“What happened?” He wants to know, so he can come to terms with how he’s seeing Daichi in the flesh after almost three years of believing he never would, but part of him doesn’t want their reunion to be weighed down with the truth.

Daichi seems to think the same. “I’ll tell you later,” he promises, reaching out for his waist with his free hand to draw him close. “Can I kiss you?”

Koushi’s heart flutters at that. “Stop stalling,” he whispers with a grin, and closes the distance between them.

Tooru’s squealing somewhere behind them, and Hajime’s gruffly trying to get out the door, and he’ll have to call the school and make up something about being sick so he can spend the day catching up with Daichi, but it can wait. It can all wait. Because Koushi’s waited long enough. It’s about time the rest of the world waits for him.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry for that emotional rollercoaster (if it makes you feel any better i cried writing it) so uhhh yeah~ 
> 
> for closure!! kuroo and bokuto and akaashi also made it home safely in case you were wondering. you can also find some post-war headcanons for all of them [here](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/256469840)!
> 
> as always, thank you for reading! please let me know what you thought in the comments or on tumblr, if you feel so inclined x
> 
> [main blog](http://humhalleloujah.tumblr.com) // [haikyuu!! blog](http://karasunonolibero.tumblr.com)


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